Fuck You, Online Mother’s Groups.

I’ve been a shit stirrer since I was a little girl. I can’t help it. I like to have a laugh.

As a kid I was kicked out of the classroom a lot. One time because I put thumb tacks on my most hated teachers chair. You see, his bum was so flat that legend had it he didn’t actually have a bum at all. And I needed to find out for certain.

He jumped. He had a bum.

In High School, one teacher actually refused to have me back in the maths class ever again for talking too much. I had to teach myself year ten maths in the quadrangle for most of the year. And I think I did a better job of teaching myself!

Years later with the invention of Facebook, I would go on to get kicked out of a few Facebook groups for being a shit stirrer. All in the name of good fun mind you. So not much has changed.

I got kicked out of a Sydney based mums group for changing my name to Far Kew and asking about where I could get circumcised in Fiji. That’s now the stuff of legend, and you can read about it sometime. Just don’t sniff around and join the group, I’m tired of them riding on my coat tails *chortle*.

The other time I’ve been kicked out of a Facebook mothers group is when I joined one for people who used Modern Cloth Nappies. I’m actually struggling to remember why I was booted, perhaps I broke a small rule or messed up an acronym. I really don’t remember. But what I do remember is thinking how the fuck does one get kicked out of a group full of mums using cloth nappies to better the environment. WOW. I am such a BADASS.

Mother’s groups on Facebook can be really fucking mean places. The bigger they are the scarier places they can be. You’ll feel really left out if you are not complaining about the price of your cleaner, sharing your veggie slice recipe or humble bragging about your fucking fondant cake. If you are not into active wear and prancing around with your camel toe poking out while you pick up the kids from school, then you might find it’s a bit of a rough place to hang out. You might start wondering if you have enough designer clothes in your wardrobe, or if you should be getting a leg up on the property ladder. Even if you can’t afford it.

And, if you are unlucky enough to post something a little controversial, knowingly or not, you’ll be jumped on by the wild ones like a pack of hungry wolves. They will take you down. They won’t care if you’d had a bad day, were suffering from depression or just needed someone to talk to. They won’t bother to find out if you hadn’t slept for months or were getting a divorce. They will eat you alive.

The thing is, women can be bitches. It’s in our DNA. Women in large groups are even more bitchy. Because they feed off each others meanness. And in some of these groups there is no room for a bit of Far Kew. Haha Oh well. I’ll sob about that when I am busy writing my book.

But there is hope. I happen to know some really special ladies. I’m in some groups on Facebook that nobody would know about unless I told them. And that’s not to be exclusive, quite the contrary. It’s to get the village it takes to raise a child. Because that simply doesn’t exist anymore in our modern world, we’ve lost our tribes. And that can make being a mum really, really, hard.

We can talk about ANYTHING. Politics, books, vaccination, circumcision, and cake. And we are not all from the same walks of life, we don’t always share the same opinion and we don’t necessarily agree with each other 100% of the time.

Between this handful of beautiful ladies, some of whom I’ve never met, I’ve been able to get through some super tough times. I honestly don’t know what I would have done without their support. We’ve had births, deaths, disease, rehab, premature babies, divorce, big moves, new businesses and brain surgery to name just a few hot topics. We joke about riding the wild salami, Tim Robards’ droopy ball sack, highly competitive mums, butlers pantries and hangovers.

If you are a bit of a black sheep like me, you need to take action. Find your friends in the most unlikely corners. Unearth those unexpected friendships with people you may have known before. Start your own mini tribe and don’t worry about if it only has 4 people in it. Just make it people that are cool like you.

And kick the bitchy groups to the curb. Because google will find you a hotel in Fiji, a sensibly priced cleaner in your suburb and a recipe for chicken pie that freezes well.

THE END

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